Make Do and Mend
by katherine-with-a-k
Summary: War is over, the boys are back, and everything has changed. Except for Una Meredith. With Faith and Rilla both married and everyone else pursuing their dreams, Una goes to stay with Anne and Gilbert. A new doctor, a new minister, and Shirley's war bride keep life in the Glen unpredictable. But the arrival of a new lodger to Ingleside brings the biggest surprise of all. CTA SEQUEL
1. Waking Up

_When I finished CTA I always thought I would write two more installments, one about the Blythe, Meredith and Ford experiences in the First World War, and the other about the aftermath when Rilla opens the door to Ken Ford._

 _More than a year later I know that the aftermath is what I most want to write about. I did toy with the idea of writing it as a story by Anne Blythe, but the thought of writing in a new voice was a challenge I couldn't resist. In some ways I'm not writing a strict sequel to CTA but I hope it offers something new. It's my very first 'off the page/ what happened next' story, and it's told by Una Meredith._

 _With love and gratitude to L.M.M. -everything is hers, only this idea is mine_

 **MAKE DO AND MEND  
**

 _ **Chapter One**_

When I found out my brother died the first thing I said was, "I cut my hair for nothing."

Dr Blythe put his hand on my face and smoothed my brow with his thumb. He didn't tell me I was babbling or that it was the fever talking. He might have if he was married to someone else. But he is married to Anne Blythe which means he has a high regard for the peculiar.

"This was for Bruce?" he asked, touching my head. I felt his hand on my neck where the hair had run short.

"For God."

My cheeks went hot because Dr Blythe is an Elder in our church and bargaining with God is a thing never done, especially by a Minister's daughter. He remained silent, which was something he hadn't learned from his wife. Mrs Blythe would certainly ask me about it -and probably guess.

"When he was ill, when he- when he was very sick, I said to God if he survived I would cut off all my hair."

It wasn't much of a bargain, but then I haven't much to give. There is nothing very pretty or particular about me. I'm the pale, thin sort, neither tall nor short, with largish, blueish eyes and smallish, even teeth. My mouth has a habit of falling open, giving the impression I have something to say. But I usually don't and have given up trying. Because it invariably begins with 'um', and as my name is Una Meredith and my initials spell UM I soon learned not to encourage the nickname.

People say my hair is the most striking thing about me. It's black as tar and so thick I could leave it in rags for a week and a curl would never take. If I wasn't being called Little Um at school then it was Nag's Tail. At home my brother, Jerry, calls me U. For no particular reason, he shrinks everybody's name. My sister, Faith, calls me Luna-Moon, but for good reason, she says. Because I have a way of staring into space and forgetting to blink. Once upon a time there was a boy who called me Moonlight. But boys like that are the sort to die young, and though Walter Blythe was exceptional in every way even he could find no way to exceed that rule.

My littlest brother is also a rare sort - _was_ also a rare sort. He was the one who gave me the idea to negotiate with God. In the last year of the war when Faith's sweetheart had been listed wounded and missing, he took it into his head to offer up his kitten so that Jem's life might be spared. He never said a word about it, instead we found him sobbing in the garden, his beloved Stripey in his arms soaking the front of his shirt. For weeks after whenever I clutched something tight I could feel wet fur on my skin. I must have been delirious to think that hacking my hair with the dressmaking shears might save him. Instead I woke up to a clipped head and the news that while I had survived the Spanish Flu my beloved brother had not.

"I thought that- I thought that Bruce had recovered." His name stuck in my throat like a fish hook.

"There was a moment, Una... when thought he'd pull through -but it only lasted an hour or two. Do you remember him calling for you?"

I did. His little voice could just be heard above the sound of the shears, the seven inch blades making a slow metallic scrape that both frightened and satisfied. I blew lengths of hair off my nose and called out to him, 'I'm coming, Bruce, I'm coming!' with a lightness I hadn't felt since my last letter from Walter. Then I woke up with Walter's father smiling down at me like I had just won a First in famously difficult exam.

My father peered around the doorway, rubbing his head as though he never knew he had hair. Before the war it was thick and black like Jerry's. Now even Jerry's isn't like Jerry's. When he returned from the Front in the New Year his hair had gone completely white. Another doctor would have driven the visitor out of my room and spoken in serious tones about the patient not being disturbed. Dr Blythe leaped from my bed -I was almost bounced out of it- wrapping his arm around my father and squeezing his shoulder tight.

"She's good as gold, John. Lungs clear, no fever. You have eight weeks to fatten her up in time for Rilla's wedding!"

I stopped looking at my father and peered out the window to see the sun shine green through the ivy leaves. "Eight weeks?" I croaked, "Rilla's set to marry at Christmas. How long have I been ill?"

The two men looked at each other and then at the floor.

"Shall we let the women answer that?" Dr Blythe said, clapping my father hard on the back. "As for you, Miss, I can't say I ever expect to be a fan of these bobs you women are in a craze for, but I couldn't leave without telling you that a girl never suited it more." He bent over my bed and his eyes though hazel looked just like Walter's grey ones. "Nothing is ever for nothing," he said, but I knew what he meant was, Bless you for living, Una Meredith.

After that my bedroom became a train station, there was only one little visitor who never stopped by. I kept listening out for his sturdy footsteps marching toward my room.

Then I'd remember.

We say that a lot now, Rilla and I. She is here most days, usually with her mother, though I never see much of her. Mrs Blythe spends most of her time with Rosemary, who has been mother to me since I was ten. But being mother _to_ someone isn't be the same as being mother _of_ someone. Bruce was her son, and Father's, and now he is gone and there are no other little children for her to hold onto, only her husband's battle scarred, grown up brood.

"Between my eye and Jerry's back and your hair and Faith-" said my younger brother, Carl, scoffing down a square of fudge. It was a batch of Susan Baker's and when she arrived with it this morning I heard her bark at Doctor Blythe, "Sugar ration or no, if Una Meredith wants fattening up for Rilla's big day then fattened she shall be!"

"What's Faith got up to now?" I said.

I have almost forgotten what it's like to share a room with her. When she first left for Redmond I would always make sure to sleep on my side of the bed and never let so much as a strand of hair trespass on hers -in those days it came down past my drawers. Four years later she is finishing out her last months as a VAD in Dover and I am sprawling in the valley of our mattress like an overindulged cat.

Carl sighed, he sighed a lot since coming home, and pushed one finger under the patch on his left eye and rubbed carefully.

"I'd tell you, Una, but I can't face the _why did you do that fors_ I'm bound to get if I do. All this secrecy -it's daft. This is 1919 not the Dark Ages."

Before he could say more Rilla appeared balancing small cups of cocoa on a tray, and I was caught up in one of those silent conversations that make me want to study the ceiling. She shoved a cup into Carl's hand.

"I can't leave you up here for five minutes," she said, then turned to me and gave me her best Ken Ford wink.

"I'm winking too, Una, only you can't tell because it's my left eye."

Rilla glared at Carl and they began talking without words again. I marvelled at the eloquence of my brother's one blue eye, wishing there was a way for me to ask the next question without saying it aloud.

"Is this about the baby?"

Rilla's head turned sharply. "What baby?" she said.

"Which baby?" said Carl.

"It's alright. I know about Faith. Sitting up here day after day you hear all sorts of things. Especially in this house."

We Merediths live at the old stone Manse because Father is the Minister of Glen St Mary Presbyterian Church. It's three stories tall not counting the attics, with an immense oak staircase that rises like a spine through a wide and echoing hall. It must have been imposing in its day but like Miss Havisham those frills and furbelows are now rotting, stained and worn. Faith says the ivy is the only thing keeping it up. Faith is very fond of the ivy. When she and Jem were courting in those blue sky days before the war she used its tendrils like a ladder in order to slip away at night. Nobody knew what she got up to except me. But I didn't count. I think because she relied on me to do all the worrying for her.

Rilla looked at me curiously. Carl looked at me, bored. He had finished his cocoa and was digging his finger into the bittersweet slurry that was always left behind in Rilla's cocoa cups. The youngest Miss Blythe never cared to learn about how to make cocoa properly. She never used to care for anything except her own tragedies. Like Faith she has been cursed with great beauty, which makes others assume she is immune to life's hurts, and made Rilla determined to treat the slightest set back as though it was a catastrophe. While I loved her I couldn't quite comprehend her. But then I don't look like a posy of dewy roses when I cry, I look like the crumpled waxy paper they were wrapped in.

She stood up and began straightening the old lace at the window. There is still a tear through a tulip petal where Faith caught hold of it after losing her balance when she clambered over the sill. Our cocoas had gone cold. I wondered if they should be returned to the kitchen to be heated up again -to waste it in these times is unthinkable- and Rilla said,

"So... what do you think- about Faith?"

"You haven't told me I'm right yet," I said.

"Are you ever wrong?" she replied and sat on the bed with a bounce to equal her father's.

She shared his eye colour too. All the Blythes have the kind of eyes that dare to stare just a fraction long. But Walter was the only one in his family to have such black hair. Rilla has glossy chestnut curls that frame her face like an angel no matter what style she experiments with. This morning it was coiled about her ears, her pink lobes pierced with the tourmaline drops that Walter had sent her from France. Their mother has some too, though they are bigger and turquoise, and like Rilla she is never seen without them.

"I'm often wrong," I said, "this just made the most sense. I suppose being bedridden was reason enough not to go to the funeral," there have been dozens of funerals in the Glen, but Rilla and Carl knew whose funeral I meant, "but no one could ever explain to me why Jem had to miss it and go all the way back to England when he had only just come home."

Between the two of them I pieced together a definitive answer. Faith's letter arrived for Jem in the weeks after his triumphant return to Ingleside. She'd had to give up her work with the VAD and her place at the hostel. She might have booked a berth on the next steamer to Kingsport but that would mean arriving in the Glen with a suspicious bump and no wedding band. There was nothing for it but to call Jem back. Though her last letter said nothing of this, instead it was filled with warnings of the wallop I would receive if I dared to scare her like that again.

 _Doubtless you have worn your little fingers to their little bones but did you have to take the Flu in order to get a bit of rest -couldn't a fortnight in Charlottetown have done just as well?_

The letter was postmarked Crabble not Buckland. My dauntless sister must have found another place to live.

"So now you know," Carl said. He had shifted himself from my bed the moment Rilla sat on it and was flicking through one of the books Mrs Blythe had lent me. "This was Walt's," he said, "you can tell by the writing in the margins."

Rilla and I fell upon it.

"What does that say, do you think?" Rilla said, glancing at me sideways. "Weren't his letters a chore to work out? I even asked Ken to look over one or two to see if he could make out some of the words any better than I could."

Carl closed the book on our fingers and walked to the door. "You up for a rematch tonight, little elf?"

"That's one book I have been reading," I said, of the copy Art of Chess that was hiding somewhere in my bedclothes.

"Then I'll leave you two to discuss babies," Carl said, ducking out the door. Rilla threw Faith's old pillow at it.

"He's like Jerry in concentrated form!" She lay down next to me and leaned on her arm. "How is he anyway? We never see him at Ingleside and Nan's been back for a week-"

"We hardly see him either. His back hurts him a great deal more than he lets on. He only ever sits in a chair or gets up from one when he thinks no one is looking."

"But you're always looking, aren't you, Una. Nothing gets passed you!"

I felt like a snoop when she said it like that. One of those women who strut to the Manse first thing every morning to let Father know who else needed to be prayed for that week. When I think of what Faith got up to under their watch, some nights Jem's kisses used to steam off her like wet socks in front the fire. Our room was often so thick with it I would slink into Bruce's bed.

Rilla reached for Walter's book and flipped through it absently. She has lovely long fingers and if I envied her anything I envied her that. She can span an octave with the grace of a lark's wing. When I'm at the piano I always think of frogs, though I don't remember who put that image in my head, me or Carl. His last words sat in the room as elephantine as could be.

"You never drank your cocoa, Rilla-"

"What of it-"

"And every visitor I get up here always eats more than they bring -except you."

Rilla picked up a square of fudge. "Carl's hair is the exact same colour. Susan must have used our entire week's ration to make this."

"In that case you're entitled to a fair share."

She screwed up her face and shook her head.

"Am I going to have to hear it in snatches through a wall or are you going to tell me why you're getting married in six weeks instead of six months?" I reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. I didn't know how to say the next bit, and the next thing I knew it was said. "Faith's not the only one who's expecting, is she?"

Rilla rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling. There's a lovely crack that runs across it that follows almost the exact course of the St Mary river.

"It doesn't matter if I am or I'm not. I'm happy, Una, so very, very happy! I love Ken, love him as I've never loved another in my life. And that's all that's all that matters- not great big weddings!"

I looked past her shoulder to the curled up picture Faith had pinned to the wall a lifetime ago. A colour illustration of a white satin gown that Rilla never failed to adore whenever she was in my room -the Headless Saint of Hopeful Brides. A great big wedding had once been very important to my dearest chum, and what spare time she had was usually spent poring over bridal catalogs; one hand flipping the pages and the other running a rainbowy opal over her lips.

"It's about time we had a wedding round here," she had said to me, "and I don't see why we should have to wait on Jem. He'll never marry Faith until he's made a doctor of himself and that's two years away. I suppose Nan and Jerry might still surprise us, but why pin our hopes on maybes when Ken and I want to be married right now! They keep saying we hardly know each other, but I've known Ken all my life. I want to see Mother stitch something other than Red Cross garments, and hear her laugh, _really_ laugh again. I want it for her and for Dads even more than I want it for me. And not some sketchy little war wedding either, with a cardboard cake and a borrowed veil. It's going to be a great big old timey village hall affair. Ken and I mean to invite everyone -and their grandmother. I want this to be the wedding the Glen talks about for years to come. After everything we've been through I want to give them that."

She wanted to have six bridesmaids, Ken wanted her to wear snowdrops in her hair, which meant they'd have to wait till winter. I suspected the flower choice was Ken's way of appeasing family opinion that it was happening far too quickly. "Quickly," Rilla would scoff, "we've been engaged since 1915!"

I pulled my pillow away and placed my head by hers, the tourmaline stone was cold against my cheek.

"What does Ken say about it?" I hadn't seen Ken beyond a 'Hey there kiddo, good to see you decided to stick around' last week. I think it's the most he's ever said to me.

"Whatever makes me happy makes him happy, that's what Ken says. Oh, I know what you're thinking, that I made a ruinous mistake. But I'm not sorry, Una. I'm not. I love him -oh I love him so stupidly it's not real. I feel like I'm in a dream. That tomorrow I will wake up to more endless waiting, that a call will come long-distance from Toronto and I'll discover he's been killed, that he's missing, that he's mutilated beyond recognition and he never wants to see me again. If only you knew what it felt like when -when... someone you loved came back to you, wanted to marry you, _wanted_ you..."

She says _someone_ because she can't say Walter. She never would. Walter wasn't the sort to hurl himself at a girl.

Ken Ford on the other hand, Rilla told me he'd kissed her good and proper when he came here on leave before going to the Front. He'd come for tea and a catch up, Rilla was hoping for more but she wasn't sure how he felt about her. She's not oblivious to her looks like her sister, Nan, but neither does she count on them to get her what she wants. When people call her the Blythe beauty she considers it a consolation prize.

She brought my hand to her stomach which was as flat as my own. I thought about my sister over the water and the girl next to me, and the weddings they were supposed to have. Grand and golden occasions that would light up our little paths like a string of lanterns in a dark garden. There would be none of that now. Faith would be marrying Jem in a Registry Office in Southampton. Rilla and Ken would have a discreet ceremony at the Lighthouse. I wanted to be happy for them. Instead I had that September feeling when I look up at the sky after three months of rain and finally admit to myself that summer isn't coming.

I wondered who, if anyone, would be the one to bring it back.

 **...**

 ***** _Spanish Flu refers to the Influenza epidemic of 1918-19, 40 million people died worldwide (38 million soldiers and civilians died in WW1)_

 _*VAD is the Voluntary Aid Detachment.  
_

 _Thank you for reading, let me know what you think :o)  
_


	2. New Arrivals

_**Chapter Two**_

If July was a grey day in autumn, September has the feeling of midsummer. Jem and Faith are on their way home and the breath we've been holding can finally be let go. We crammed onto the veranda, our necks craning and our eyes brimful with tears. But this time we gave into the fatal blink and they spilled down our cheeks and seeped into our mouths.

Di Blythe made a great wet sniff. "Can you see anything, Nan? My eyes are that fogged up."

Nan shook her head unable to speak, and Anne nestled against her bare shoulder. I remember when Nan was as soft and creamy as strawberry mousse, now when she placed her arm around her mother I could see her muscles move under her skin.

"I've a feeling we'll hear them first, you wait," said Dr Blythe.

He was right. Jem and Faith's arrival was heralded by trumpeting honks as they motored up Glen Street in the Ford's Hudson Super Six. At first all I could see was Mrs Ford's hair, which is lighter and longer than Rosemary's, glowing behind the windscreen. She brought the automobile to a stop and then Jem's red head popped up, still cut like a soldier, shorn to nothing at the sides with a slicked back crest on top. He gave us a smile then dashed round to open the door for his wife, who clambered down in such a way that the first thing I noticed was her stomach.

"Here we are!" Faith said, brightly, "A ready made Blythe family."

"I've had some missions," Jem declared, "but that one I never want to repeat."

They held out their arms to us and we flocked to them like pigeons to a war memorial, Jem's little dog circling madly as though he hoped to catch one. Handkerchiefs appeared and there were cries of "Come _in_ , come _in!_ " and "Faith you _must_ sit down!" Anne took Jem's arm and Father took Faith's, and we went in pairs up the mint covered stairs, the doctor with Rosemary, Mrs Ford with Ken, Carl with Di, Rilla with Nan, which meant Mr Ford with myself.

"Would you like some help with the bags?" I said.

"Ah, the fringe dweller," he said. "I didn't recognise you."

I wasn't sure if he was making fun of me or not because I couldn't see much of his face. He wore his homburg over his eye and his beard sleek and thick as a beaver pelt.

"Did you want me for anything?"

"Yes as it happens. Why don't you take your wee self to the good doctor's study and see of you can find me something stronger than tea on this teetotal Island. Miss Meredith, my dear, I need a drink."

I had only seen Dr Blythe's office from the doorway. It's the first room you come to as you enter the house. It smelled different to the plummy spice of Ingleside. Not of illness exactly, but urgency. This wasn't a room for contemplation or refuge the way Father's was. Here things were done in brisk, methodical fashion and then dipped in spirits afterwards. I realised that was what I was smelling, a fearsome, unrepentant trace of ether. I could hear laughter coming from the living room on the other side of the hall and I thought of that great author, Owen Ford, planting himself in the wingback chair, drumming his fingers upon the arms as he waited for me to appear.

Where would Dr Blythe keep it? Father had a sticky, dusty bottle of port that he kept in a little black cupboard by the door to the Calling Room. He used to have it by the fireplace but quickly discovered his visitors saw this as an invitation to settle in for the night. Whereas if they drank it by the door it seemed to bring about the words, "Well, Reverend, I'd best be going." I tried to imagine where the doctor would hide it. It would have to be a place where Susan wouldn't go. She cannot abide the 'devil's brew' and has said more than once that "Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine." I knew then whatever contraband was in this room would have to be in the glass fronted bookcase where the anatomy books are kept. There was a key sitting in the door, worn to a buttery softness by touch and time. It turned easily and on the bottom shelf concealed by the lower wooden panels was a tantalus. This had a key as well, but I had no idea what to do once it was unlocked so I brought the whole contraption, bottles, tumblers and all, into the living room.

"Here, let me," said Faith.

"Let _me_ ," said Mrs Ford. She whisked the tantalus out my hands, while her other arm wound about Faith like an expensive silk scarf. "You should be sitting down."

It was strange to see my headstrong sister comply so readily. She did roll her eyes -but only at me. No one, not even Faith, is brave enough to roll their eyes at Leslie Ford.

I perched in one of the inglenooks that Ingleside is named for; where Faith is always being told to sit down I am always being told to keep warm. A good cup of cocoa was put in my hand, made by Susan this time. She is supposed to be retired but her people realised long ago that cutting her out of the kitchen would likely cut short her life. Dr Blythe is always saying he will hire a girl from Harbour Mouth to tackle the heavy jobs, which never fails to infuriate his wife.

"Firstly, Gilbert Blythe, I am more than capable of tackling the heavy jobs, I was raising two sets of twins when you lolling about in trees-"

"You would too, Allwinds was famed for its apples-"

"Secondly," she said, pretending to ignore him, "there's hardly any work that needs doing. When this lot all leave me the house will be empty."

"About that," Father said, looking up from his book -it was a measure of how beloved he was that he was left to read in peace. He placed his atlas next to one of the curious china dogs that sit by the fireplace and cleared his throat. "Have you given any more thought to Mrs Marshall Elliot?"

"We would have her in a moment-" Anne said, and I watched her husband give her a look that meant, _We would?_ "But not without Susan's say so."

No one needed further explanation. Cornelia's contempt for men was as well understood as Susan's wish for a husband, and it was deemed an unforgivable offense that one day twenty-five years ago Cornelia suddenly 'up and married without so much as a by your leave.' She has since returned to her man-hating ways and vows never to forgive her husband for daring to die before her. Like Irene Howard, James Anderson, Martin West and Jessie O'Ryan- like Bruce, and a dozen more besides, Marshall Elliot is now in the ground.

Mary Douglas is insisting Cornelia come and live with them above Carter Flagg's Store. 'Them' being herself and her husband Miller -though I doubt Miller's opinion was actually sought. Mary is very proud of her little house on top, and declares she will be happy as a "cat under a leaky cow" once the front room is partitioned off and a bed put up. Cornelia is just as insistent that she will never leave her smart clapboard house on the road to Four Winds. But Dr Blythe has told her she can no longer live alone since falling into her onion patch and dislocating her hip. It took her the best part of a day to crawl back to the house and another day passed before anyone missed her. Sometimes I think of her lying on her carpet patterned with cabbage roses, thirsty, faint and in horrible pain and I wonder: Was she afraid to die alone? Or hoping she too might be called to 'join the choir invisible' as Walter used to say.

"How I've missed that," Faith said, pinching my nose to bring me back. "Missed my little Moonface."

"Aren't you supposed to be sitting down?" I said. This is as close as I get to teasing and I was pleased to get another eye roll.

"Ask me to go for a stroll, won't you, Una? They'll let me go if I go with you."

It was good to be needed again and even better to have a reason to slip away. Whenever we have people at the Manse I like to keep to the kitchen. And while I was glad to take my share of happiness this evening I had to admit I was almost filled to bursting.

Before the war Ingleside's garden was what Anne Blythe called a poem, what Susan called pretty enough, and what the Glen girls called unfair. Clouds of jasmine, clusters of violets and bursts of peony roses were said to flower longer, grow faster and smell more fragrant than anywhere else on the Island. It was also said this was further proof of the doctor's wife's unnatural powers, though the doctor put it down to horse manure. Their daughters were never quite dressed until a last minute visit to the flower beds, and never seen without a posy at their waist or a garland in their hair. I remember Jerry stalking our own patch some evenings, grubbing about in despair looking for something to give to Nan that wasn't a marigold or nasturtium. The only flowers we grow are the ones that help the vegetables.

"Una, dear," Nan said to me once, "I think your brother is under the impression that my favourite colour is orange."

He would have laughed if he'd been here tonight, all the flowers were orange. Except the roses. Mrs Blythe was afraid they wouldn't survive being transplanted and now Bourbons, Noisettes, Hybrid Teas and China blooms bob about with the last of the green beans and tomatoes. I like to think it looks like an unfurled roll of Provencal cloth. I've never seen it, but Jerry mentioned in his letters a nurse aid from Gordes who wore a wonderfully patterned apron. If a merchant arrived right now with a hundred swatches of fabric in his bag I would know exactly what pattern Mademoiselle Poulain wore just from Jerry's description. He lost touch with her when he was released from the hospice and his unit was moved on. Though he never said it outright I knew how dear she was to him.

 _Sophie taught me a new word today, U. You know how I am about collecting words, and this one is a beauty. Would you believe in Provence they have a name for 'a ray of sun shining through the clouds after rain' ? A single word. Isn't that marvellous?_

I've forgotten it now, I think because I had no need of it. I already knew a name that meant the same thing.

"I'll never get used to it," Faith sighed. She's not the sort to sense someone's thoughts so I could comfortably ask her what she meant. I expected her to say being with child or perhaps being a wife, instead she said, " _This!_ " and gestured wildly. "All the lilies and fox gloves _gone_. It looks more like a market garden than a home."

She held out her arm and I helped her sit down on the patch of lawn Susan has spared from the hoe.

"Does our home look like home to you?" I asked, sitting next to her.

"Do you mean do I wish I could stay in the Glen? Of course I do, Una. But it's simply not possible. I go where Jem goes."

And Jem is going to Toronto. When the two of them arrived in Kingsport the Fords were there to meet them because their son is marrying Rilla next week and they are staying at Ingleside. They knew everything, of course. Mrs Ford was with Anne the day Jem came into the world and loves him as if she had borne him herself. So when the question came of how Jem intended to support a wife and child and study to become a doctor, Leslie Ford had the answer.

"I've been thinking, Anne," she said, placing her glass firmly on the table. "if you're getting my son it's only fair that yours should come to me. Toronto could make just as good a doctor out of Jem as your beloved Redmond. And there's more than enough room at the Croft for Faith and the baby. Well you know the size of the place-"

"I believe the word is mausoleum," said Ken.

Leslie prodded her son with her cake fork.

"Oh you'll miss it soon enough, my laddie. You've only had vacations at the cottage, you wait till winter sets in."

Anne laughed. "Take no notice of your mother's highfalutin ways, Ken dear. Gilbert and I were indecently happy in our House o' Dreams, and I'm sure you and Rilla will be just as snug."

"You don't need much when you've got love," said Di. The salt cellar fell as Ken kicked her under the table.

"What do you say, Dads?" Jem asked him.

"It's not me that wants consulting," the doctor said, though anyone could see how tickled he was. Di told me he'd been bending himself in knots trying to think of a way for Jem to return to medical school. Though what he mostly said was "rash, impulsive, and of all the stupid things for him to do!" He pressed his hand on his son's shoulder. "She's your captain now."

All eyes turned to Faith, who was about to take a drink. The cup hovered between the table and her mouth and she looked at us.

"What?" she said. "Of course I agree. I'd live in a gutter if I had to." She reached for Jem's hand and they spoke to each other in a secret language that always made me want to study my shoes. "I never want to be parted from Jem _ever, ever_ again."

"What really happened in England, Faith?" I asked her.

Faith lay back in the grass and stared at the moon. A fine haze spread over the sky like a roll of gauze had been wrapped round the stars to stop them bleeding. It made her face even paler, and her eyes were tired.

"How much do you know?" she said

"They didn't want to worry me-"

"Doesn't it ever bother you, Una? They treat you like a child. You're 22 years old-"

"Almost 23, Rilla's getting married on my birthday-"

"On purpose?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I'm being a brat. Do you suppose mothers are allowed to be horrible?"

"We know plenty who are," I said. I meant it as a joke but I'm not very good at them. Faith wasn't laughing, she looked as if she wanted to cry.

"Sometimes I feel so afraid that... I'll turn out like that. One of those hardfaced women who like to say their children are a curse. When I thought I would lose the babies- oh Una, it was a despicable, forsaken day. There was just Jem and me alone in that hovel of a boarding house. He was sitting on my bed -I had to pay my room mate to leave, she wouldn't go unless I gave her the price of a cup of tea and a cake from the shop down the street. And Jem was holding my hand and saying, "We can do this Faith, we'll find a way," and I must have gone white because he fell to his knees and he hasn't done that for- well a long time. He kept saying my name and telling me it was going to be alright and all I could think of, Una, was how do I tell him I think I'm having a miscarriage? And then I thought... perhaps I wouldn't, that I would send him away and let nature take it course... God forgive me, but for one moment... I was- relieved."

I had been rubbing my thumb over her hand as she spoke and I kept doing it now, in little circles. I'd only been told that Faith and Jem were taking a short honeymoon before booking their passage back home. While I doubted they had the money for that I had no idea my sister was in danger. But she knew all about me -and Bruce. I felt useless and weak and then I felt selfish for thinking of myself instead of Faith. Faith who had been so afraid; of ruining Jem's ambitions, of shaming her family, of being a rotten mother to her babies-

 _Babies._

I didn't realise I'd said it out loud.

"So you noticed that did you -why am I not surprised?"

"Is this something else I'm not supposed to know?"

"Nobody knows," she said.

I eyed her stomach which rose like the line of the hill to the west of the Glen. Lurking about the anatomy books is about as close as I am ever likely to get to an understanding in biology, but even I knew there was no way that Faith looked five months pregnant. That was why Anne had suddenly mentioned twins, she knew it too.

"I won't say anything."

"Jem said if one of them is a boy we could name him Bruce-" she turned from the sky and caught my eye, "Don't worry, I told him he was very sweet but that Bruce would have liked it best if we named our child for his own good self. He was devoted to Jem... and you were devoted to our little brother-"

She reached her hand up to my hair, what's left of it, her fingers running under the ends like the fringe of our best lamp. We had a ritual, Faith and I. I suppose I shouldn't call it that, a habit then, where she would brush my hair for me every night. My mother used to do it and when she died my seven year old sister made a promise to continue in her place until the day she 'expired or wed, whatever came first.' I used to pretend it was Mother's hands holding the silver brush. Now I catch myself talking to Faith as I brush it myself, forgetting she isn't there. She moved her hand away and placed it on her stomach.

"I thought perhaps... Walter- would be a good name."

"You _could_ have both," I said, and this time she laughed. She looked like Faith again, golden and glowing, her eyes especially. Walter used to say they looked like candle flames, and that her hair was the colour of sunlight through the merest maple shaving. To which Jem would reply she had better not look at her hair then or she might catch alight.

"Jem _and_ Walter!" Faith said. "Heavens, then everyone would expect me to have _four_ more. I always liked Diana for a name, but I don't know if I could ever have a Shirley."

"I miss Shirley Blythe." I lay down next to her and as I did something like a sigh came out. Not from missing him but from saying the thing I didn't know I meant until I said it.

" _Do_ you now?"

"Yes, I do. He makes me feel normal."

"You are normal, Una, it's the rest of us who are mad."

"You'll not tar me with that brush, I hope, _Mrs_ Blythe."

Faith and I tilted our chins and looked back to see Susan marching upside-down toward us. Her absence from the welcoming party had been horribly conspicuous, and though she hadn't skimped on the generous dinner Jem barely picked at it.

"Haul me up, Una," Faith said, grimly. "I don't think I can take this lying down."

Miss Baker stood above us. Her mouth appeared as if it was stitched closed but her softly folded eyes were sad.

"I've come to say my piece," she said, "I shan't be long about it, I've already spoken to Jem and it never took more than a minute. To my way of thinking marriage comes first and children come after. You've robbed your folks of a much deserved wedding, caused 'em untold strain when they've had more than their share, and been the source of some very lewd gossip. And that's not counting what they must be sayin' of you 'up there'-" Susan pointed heavenward and I wondered if it wasn't a bandage over the sky but a handkerchief to mop up the tears. "I won't say I'm disappointed because you've made it right and there's the little one to think of now and I'm not having him come into a family divided. There's nothing worse for children than having to grow up tiptoeing round a dirty great hole. You've done what you should so there's no need for me to speak of it again. I'll have Mrs Marshall Elliot to contend with soon enough, and if she should ever bend my ear about this business I want to be able to say in good conscience, 'I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.' Well, I'm off to have words with Rilla and little Ken. Though what good _words_ do! If I could straighten my hands I'd have a good mind to line you up and spank the lot of you."

She went to go and then turned on her heel and peered at me.

"I don't much hold with short hair but tell me, Una dear- you'd _never_ do something like this, would you?"

"Never," I said. "And that you may tie to."

 **... ... ...**

 _* 'join the choir invisible' is from the poem by George Elliot (no relation ;o)_

* _in case you're interested the Provencal word is souleidao_

 _Thank you for your reviews and favourites, it was an unexpected and lovely surprise. Anne-fans don't often come Glen-side so for you to give this story a chance makes me especially happy._


	3. The Lighthouse

_**Chapter Three**_

I wheeled my bicycle up the herringbone path, alyssum and phlox spilled over the bricks and I mangled them under my tyres. The scent should have been overpowering yet all I could smell was smoke. The front door was gaping wide and gleaming with a new coat of red but the smoke seemed to come from the back garden. There didn't seem a way to get round, brambles grew down the east side and piles of wood were stacked along the west, so I hauled my parcel out of the basket and went up the steps to the house.

I haven't been inside the House o' Dreams -as Mrs Blythe calls it- for five years. Back then it had been the Ford's summer stay though I doubt its interior expressed much of the Fords. It was sparely furnished with the sort of old fashioned mismatched stuff we have at the Manse. A sagging daybed, cushions patched with handkerchiefs, a green chair, a blue chair and a rocking chair tucked under a table marked with cup rings. We drank lemonade out of mugs. Not because there weren't any glasses but because neither Ken nor his sister Persis could be bothered to wash them.

I remember sitting there one muggy afternoon with Cornelia Elliot and asking where Ken sat.

"At Ingleside, usually," Persis replied. "They have the hot and cold on there."

There were no such hardships at the cottage now. What was Dr Blythe's study has become a fitted bathroom. The little kitchen was _unrecognisable_ , Rilla told me gleefully. There is the prettiest double stove in pale mint and cream, a pressed steel refrigerator -lined with porcelain not enamel- and the crowning glory... an Eden washing machine!

I meant to sound impressed though what I said was where will the breakfast table go?

"We could trudge off to the dining room but Ken wants that for his writing. The war office have given him a $400 advance! It's a pity we had to sacrifice Dad's old study but there was no other option, we could hardly put a bathroom at the front of the house. The best solution would be to put a small table in the living room -by the window seat -why that would be perfect! Even if it wasn't I hardly care. Oh Una, I'd eat off the floor for an electric washing machine!"

It was currently still in its crate, pushed against a kitchen wall with a corner jutting out. There were dark splashes on the cedarwood top where someone, probably Ken, had collided with it while carrying coffee. But the stove was just as pretty as I'd been told, and the refrigerator a dark, gleaming box with half a dozen silvery handles studding its facade like buttons on a peacoat. The walls of the kitchen had been painted a glossy eggshell blue, and the rest of the downstairs seemed to follow that scheme. The living room looked sombre and serious in a new coat of what Rilla called 'Velvet Evening', with the hall in a lighter shade simply called 'Sky'. As I walked through it I didn't feel I was flying so much as wading through water; struck with a sense that I should ditch the parcel I was carrying or it would drag me down and drown me.

It was much brighter outside. A stand of lombardies shade the front of the house but the back garden had been pruned back and dug up like everywhere else in the Glen. Ken was lying on the old day bed half dressed, smoking a cigarette with his eyes closed.

"You're early," he said.

"Not unless the time's been changed and no one told me," I replied from the back step.

He swivelled his legs to the ground, his feet were bare and just as tanned as the rest of him. Some men have what Carl calls an invisible vest when they remove their shirt. Ken was tan all over.

"Toss me my sweater would you, Una?"

It wasn't easy picking it up and throwing it to him with my arms full of brown paper. I thought he was going to put it on, instead he took out a slip from one of the pockets and smoothed it over his knee.

"Two pm: Una due with the linen for master bedroom," Ken read.

"It is two," I said. The parcel was beginning to feel heavy, if I was Faith or Di I would have hurled it at him and declared, 'Make up your own bed, lazybones!' But as I am Una Meredith I said, "If I'm disturbing you I can easily do it myself-"

Ken stood up and flung his arms through what I thought was a pillow but was actually his shirt. He sauntered toward me and took the parcel out of my arms.

"You can't," he said, his cigarette between his teeth. "I haven't put the bed together."

We had the frame up in the time it takes to make a cup of tea. The bolts needed tightening and it was still without a mattress but I thought I'd leave that to Ken while I hunted out the irons.

"You're not ironing everything too," Ken said. "For pities sake, Una, it's a bed, no one will notice."

"Rilla will notice," I replied with my head in another crate.

I was glad he couldn't see me because I was beginning to feel impatient. The wedding was in two days and the house was only half done. Granted he must have done some work, there were speckles of blue all over him, dried up and peeling so that whenever I looked at them I wanted to pick them off. But there was still a room to paint, another to finish, all the furniture to arrange to say nothing of dusted afterwards. And that was without all the work in the garden that needed doing. It was overgrown and uncared for at the front and looked like my hair at the back.

"Rilla _will_ notice, you're right," Ken said. "Tell you what, you heat these up," he handed me the irons which he discovered in a toolbox, "and I'll make up the bed and we can press the linen while its on there."

I had three good and hot by the time Ken had finished. It was a worrying exercise when I carried them up the stairs because I was convinced I would collide with him on his way down and add to his collection of scars. He has a neat curved line on his face that begins at the corner of his eye and ends at the corner of his mouth, and one below his collarbone. This was pink and shiny and spread wide like a smile so that every time his shirt fell open -he never did button it- I felt as though it smirked at me.

He was bent over making hospital corners with admirable skill when I spied another, a series of pits on his lower back which disappeared into the waist of his trousers.

"I've just had a thought-" I said, running an iron over newly embroidered pillow slips.

"What's that?"

He rattled a box of matches. I looked at him and he returned them to his pocket without a word.

"You may be sleeping here tonight which means the ironing will have to be done over."

"No fear," he said, with one of Ken Ford winks. "I'm in the dining room, you would have seen my kit when you came in."

I had spied a single mattress flung on the floor with three or four mugs and some crumpled up clothing.

"I thought you were staying at Ingleside-"

"I've been camped out here since I got back. It's nice here. Quiet." He rubbed his hands over his thighs, he must have done this a lot because the paint above his knees was smudged into grey blue clouds. "Have we earned a drink yet?"

I was expecting to be offered something stronger than lemonade but the mug was filled with coffee. I perched on the day bed holding it carefully. The only other place to sit was the back stairs and Ken was sprawled all over those. I think he and Walter were the same height, but it's hard to remember now. If I wrote it down on paper they would sound like twins. Both had thick dark hair, large grey eyes and full lipped mouths that described the sort of beauty which made the rest of us feel we were staring at the sun. When Walter was nineteen he took typhoid and thereafter became a thinner, finer version of the man opposite me.

"Una," Ken said, "can I be an ungrateful cad and ask you another favour? My shirts... well all my clothes, really -any chance you running them back to yours and giving them a wash?"

"What about your electric washing machine?"

"There's no power connected to this place yet. It might be months- but don't tell Rilla." I thought Rilla would prefer to be forewarned of such a disappointment, and pictured her in the scrubby back garden stirring the copper with a foul look on her face. I nodded at Ken and he grinned. "I knew you would- won't be a mo'."

I rinsed out the mugs in the water butt -the plumbers had yet to reconnect the water mains- while Ken dashed all over the house trying to locate his clothing. They smelled as though a tom cat had sprayed them and I knew I would have more of a job removing the odour than I would removing the paint flecks. He pulled off the shirt he was wearing and threw it on top of the pile in my arms.

"Have you anything else to wear?" I asked him. The feeling of wanting to drop everything and flee was rushing through me again.

"Oh," he said breezily, "I bought a dozen shirts from that little tailor in Lowbridge, I've still one or two left."

"Could I trouble you for something to hold all this?"

"Like a bag? A bag, sure thing!" He darted to the room he was sleeping in and brought out a khaki duffle bag. "This do?" and then, "Let me-" and shoved his clothing into it.

He knelt at my feet and I noticed another scar, but this one was deliberate. A tattoo of the Four Winds lighthouse etched into the underside of his upper arm. He stood up and offered me the drawstring handle.

"Well," I said, taking hold, "if there's nothing else..."

Ken tilted his head to one side. "Just keep taking care of my girl the way you do," he said, and broke out into a white teethed grin. "And keep your hair like that, it suits you."

I decided then and there to grow it until it reached my feet, but all I said was thank you.

Two days later I was glad of my _modern do_ , as Persis called it, because I was wearing one of her creations and my usual coronet of tightly woven braids would have looked strange.

"Who would have known under all that hair was a gorgeous little gamine!"

I had to ask her what a gamine was because I thought she was calling me a ham.

"Una you are too funny, isn't she funny, Rilla?"

Rilla was staring at herself in the full length mirror, her head tilted just like the man she was going to marry at midday.

"I don't know- Persis, I was expecting this to be more... _more_ than it is."

Persis was deciding where to place her hair slide. It was made from mother-of-pearl and when she turned away from Rilla's dressing table I had no idea where she put it because her hair is the same colour. She had an Eton Crop and brows in the shape of ebony bows. It looked like the archers were preparing to fire their arrows as she studied Rilla's gown with a critical eye. Hers are purest blue like Carl's. But where his are the colour of the St Mary river, Persis' are like gemstones and were glinting fiercely.

"There I was thinking you'd tell me I'd overdone it," she said, crossing her arms. The octopus applique on her gown bulged over her breast. "Guess how long the stitchwork on the overdress took me, guess! _Thirty_ hours! Well, not me, my best embroiderer. It would have taken _me_ till Christmas, the chiffon silk is so fine I think I would have gone blind. See the little snow drop heads, each with the tiniest green french knot. Aren't they divine? What a pity you didn't have your winter wedding. The seed pearls _are_ darling but crystals would have made it come alive. Perhaps Mother brought her Vever brooch with her- you know it don't you, Rilla? That natty Art Nouveau thing with diamonds in a sunburst around an emerald the size of my thumbnail. That would just finish it off. Shall I ask her? Just say the word and I'll put in a call to the cottage-"

"Yes, do Persis." I said. "Perhaps you could keep an eye out for the girl coming to do Rilla's hair?"

"Of course!" Persis replied, nodding frantically. "Darling Rilla, you look a vision!" and she and her octopus shimmied out of the room.

"Dulcie's not due for another hour," Rilla murmured.

"We know that but Persis doesn't," I said. I could feel how stiff she was when I touched her. "Shall I get your mother?"

"Oh Una, Mother wants me to wear her amethyst brooch, and Leslie will want me to wear her emerald one, and this gown isn't anything like the sketches Persis sent me, and you look as fresh as a freesia in your eau de nil shift and I don't feel like me at all."

I peered out from behind her shoulder, I am three inches shorter than Rilla and could only just see over.

"How do you want to feel?"

"You'll laugh when I tell you-" Rilla sat on her bed and ran her hand over her quilt. It was the last thing her namesake had ever made, in infinite greens for Green Gables. I went to her and waited while she traced her finger over hexagonal patches. "No, I don't suppose you would," she said. "Not you. Alright... I want to feel like that girl who went to her first dance. I want to be _her_ again. I remember feeling _so_ grown up, which goes to show you how young and silly I was. Prancing about like a filly in the first decent dress I'd made. All by myself too. Well, Nan helped a little I suppose -where _is_ Nan?"

"With Jerry I expect," I said, though what I meant was 'I hope'. "Di's with Mrs Ford stringing up the lanterns at the Lighthouse, and Faith is having a nap -well she ought to be. Anne is trying to convince Jims not to pull off his tie before the ceremony, Rosemary is edging her way into Susan's kitchen and the men are all ferrying food and other bits over to Four Winds."

Except Ken's father. He was at Harbour Mouth paying a visit to the Lucy's who always just happened to know where one might lay their hands on a keg of rum, or in Mr Ford's case a half dozen bottles of champagne.

"The lanterns, the Lighthouse, the fizz of it all- Oh Una, _that's_ what I want... Do you know that night was the last dance we had before the war? Ken and I had our first grown up waltz, then he whisked me away to the sandbar and I fell so hopelessly in love with him an hour seemed to last a lifetime." She reminded me of a lighthouse as she spoke and just as I thought that her light went out. "I know so much has happened, to him and to me and to... all of us, but just for today- I wish -oh I wish I could be that girl again."

I remember that night but not being Rilla I remember it differently. I was wedged behind two tables doling out punch to pink cheeked dancers as they gossiped in a line.

"Ken Ford's skedaddled with one of the doctor's daughters."

"Minette's spooning Dunstan's brother and Dunstan is vowing he'll climb to the top of the Lighthouse and jump right off."

"Jack Elliot's going round saying England's at war with Germany."

"Walter Blythe is spouting off _again._ "

Only then did I put the ladle down and ask Mrs Bunt if I might be excused.

Mrs Bunt shrugged. "Just don't be long about it, Bernice can't pour for toffee."

Walter was sitting on the stone stairs. There was no way I could join him unless I blocked the way completely. I can still recall standing on the step above admiring the the way the wind went through his hair. I fancied that same wind carried the smell of him but I know it was only the smell of the sea. I wanted to grab his hand, say something impulsive like 'Let's run away from here'. I reached out to him, so close I could feel the nap of his jacket on the palm of my hand.

"Leave me be," he said, hoarsely, "just let me alone."

I'm never sure if he knew it was me. Sometimes I am certain he did. Other times I am just as convinced that he didn't. And there were other times when I'd let myself imagine that he did turn around, that he saw me, that he smiled, that he took my hand, and my breath, and my heart. But I don't think those things anymore.

His sister stood in front of the mirror visiting her own ghosts.

"The dress you wore, do you still have it?" I asked.

"I couldn't wear that, I made it when I was fifteen. It wouldn't go anywhere near me now. Oh but Ken would have _loved_ it. I don't suppose you'd remember, Una? It was palest green with a print of tiny pink roses... Una-"

Rilla eyed my gown, a soft chiffon the colour of the sky where blue meets gold. It was the loveliest dress I had ever worn, I felt almost beautiful in it. I stood up and slid it over my head.

"Oh, oh Una, you couldn't- what would you wear instead?" Rilla said, holding it to her breast. The green seemed to illuminate her.

"As if anyone will be looking at me. Persis will understand, she designed both after all. Now I'm going to hunt out every pink flower I can find," I said, wrapping her kimono over myself, "even if I have to march to Upper Glen to get them."

Mrs Howard had laid out a memorial garden for her angel Irene a year ago, every lavish specimen in her daughter's favourite colour.

Rilla lay the dress aside and knotted the belt at my waist, then her arms around me. "My dearest and best Una, do you know I would almost miss my own wedding to see you manage that!"

The bride didn't miss her wedding, she wasn't even the littlest bit late. The day was as well planned and successful as every event Rilla has ever put her hand to. There was just the right amount of chairs, just the right textured cake, and the right sort of sunshine, streaked through with a salty breeze that only the Glen can summon. Rilla walked up the stone steps on Dr Blythe's arm, I was supposed to hold up her dress but it was quite a lot shorter on her. She looked like a young girl -I suppose at twenty she can still be considered a young girl. But she never felt like one anymore. Except for those few hours when we were returned to the summer of 1914. Standing on a new pavilion and watching our Rilla in her pale green dress walk slowly toward her Ken. She wore her veil low over her brow, secured with a wreath of sweet briar, and it fell over her dress like a gossamer cloak dotted with their apple scented petals.

When Ken saw his bride he pressed his lips together so tightly his mouth looked like another scar. Susan gave a complacent sniff because Rilla had seen right not to wear white after all. Leslie wept openly, which was such a rare sight that for a moment the guests forgot the two people standing in front of my father and gaped at the groom's mother in shock. More incredibly still Anne didn't cry. When she wasn't gazing at her youngest daughter she glanced at her eldest son, her grey eyes tender and tearless.

I stood by Rilla and looked where Mrs Blythe looked, over at Jem, who seemed to have one ear open for his part in the ceremony and one eye on his wife. My own part was almost over. The House o' Dreams was prepared, the dress got up the stairs unscathed, and I held her posy with my own. Rilla's hands were filled with Ken's and he placed a ring on her finger which meant Jem's part was over almost too. I wondered if that was why Anne's attention kept flitting to the best man. Because it should have been Walter standing there.

"You never danced at the wedding," Carl said.

We were sitting on the Manse porch with our second cup of tea. My shoes were strewn on the cobblestone path because I hadn't been allowed inside, so I kicked them off impatiently and rolled my feet over the edge of the stairs.

"Neither did you," I said, nudging him. "I thought the rule was minister's daughter's don't dance, not minister's sons."

"I have two left feet and one right eye."

"I don't even have that excuse-"

My brother returned the nudge, we thought about laughing and then took another sip of tea. There was a pink and purple sky above the rooftops that looked like the sun on the sea. Then it looked like tilled earth, and then like a thousand rose petals being blown away.

"Una, why didn't you dance?"

I pulled in my feet and tucked them under my dress. The toes of my stockings were so darned they look like spider's nests. I almost wished they were, then Carl would have something interesting to talk about.

"I don't want to tell you," I said. It was the one thing that would guarantee him to prod me further, but I was tired and couldn't think of anything to say but the truth. "Because I don't want to give you another reason to be cross with Rilla."

As soon as I said it I was sorry. But he only ignored me and picked a dandelion, dissecting it with his typical care. His hands became sticky with milky sap and he brushed them into the dirt and rubbed his hands together. Little grey worms of earth and sap forming between his fingers.

"Look a bit like mealworms. We used to pick them out of our bread, and the lice out our hair, and the maggots out of our wounds... If it wasn't for everyone killing each other I might have made a decent study of them."

"If you think that kind of talk will frighten me away you're mistaken. I'm not a little girl anymore."

Carl grinned, the sort of grin he gave me before declaring, Checkmate! "So why don't you dance then?"

I didn't dance because I didn't dare. When Rilla took my dress we decided that I would wear her's but without the chiffon overdress, which meant my arms were bare all the way to the shoulder. I never thought about it until I pulled Rilla's veil down over her face and we stepped out of the Blythe's auto. Rilla was giggling, which surprised me, because she looked so nervous only moments before. I wanted to tell her to smile for her mother's sake at least, who sat misty eyed on the other side of Rilla, alternately wiping her nose and fussing with the amethyst brooch that weighed down Rilla's silken shift and threatened to expose her camisole.

"What's made you laugh, my fairy fay?" Anne asked her.

Rilla shook her head and then gestured to me. I put my face to hers and felt her veil against my ear.

"Oh Una, oh darling..." she whispered. "I never thought. But your armpits-"

"What about them?" I asked her, clamping my arms down as I said it. I knew then what she was referring to. I had forgotten about the dark hair that grows there.

"I didn't feel like dancing, Carl, that's all." I said, pulling Rosemary's shawl even tighter around me. "Do you suppose they'll let me in now?"

When I arrived at the Manse all I wanted to do was go to my room and fall into bed. But Rosemary, Father and Jerry bustled me out the door.

"Why aren't you allowed in?"

"Trust you to forget, they're in their right now putting together a supper for me. Today's my birthday, remember?"

Carl bent over and picked another dandelion, this one a ball of fuzzy clocks, and held it under my nose.

"You'd better make a wish then, Una Meredith."

... ... ...

 _* Una had confused the word gamon for gamine, one is a cured pork leg and the other is pert young thing_

 _Thank you again for the reviews and comments, it's so interesting to know what you like and don't like, you always make me see things in a new way._


	4. Living with Ghosts

_**Chapter Four**_

I went to the new cemetery to talk to Bruce and saw Jerry sitting near his marker. His white head was bent over the small white painted post and reminded me of an i. We haven't placed a headstone on the grave site yet because the earth isn't settled enough to bear the weight. It's still in a mound, and I will be sad to see it go. The little lump seems more Bruce to me, as if he was only sleeping under a pile of bedclothes.

Jerry was studying his finger. I put my hand on his shoulder to let him know I was there.

"Is it still troubling you?" I asked him. "The thorn I mean."

Jerry helped me make Rilla's wreath for her wedding. I found him near our back gate when I was seeking out flowers to decorate her veil. Together we wrestled with a mess of briars that grow in the alley between the Manse and the Cole place. Then sat on the old bench under the quince bower, Jerry removing the prickles while I wove the roses into a crown.

"I can feel it alright," he said, not looking up, "I just can't get it out."

I placed the pebble in my pocket by a larger stone and knelt down beside him. The grass had been clipped recently and little flecks of green stuck to my dress and my boots. The smell reminded me of cold flasks in the river and hot heads under hats and arguments over whether the ball had bounced or been caught on the full.

"You never bothered with the bread poultice, did you?" I asked him.

"Seemed such a waste of bread." Jerry said. He put his knuckle to his mouth and sucked it.

"Perhaps Miss Gregory will pray for it this evening. You know how she likes praying for everyone's aches and pains."

"I'm not going," Jerry muttered. "I can't face it-"

"I thought that was the point of Prayer Meetings," I said, "so that we never feel we are facing things alone."

There was a sharp retort in his mouth, I could sense it needling at him as surely as his splinter. But Jerry has always been in the habit of being gentle with me. Everyone has.

"Sorry, U. I shouldn't be so gruff- not in front of the wee man."

He passed his hand over the marker. I think everyone who comes here does that. There isn't one speck of dust or dirt on it, only a large stone wedged at the base. Jem placed it there after Rosemary collapsed upon the post and caused it to tilt. The day after the wedding I discovered Persis with a brush in her hand and another between her lips, painting the rock to look like a small cat curled up in sleep. I wondered if this was a happy coincidence or if someone had told her about poor old Stripey.

"I'm sure Bruce would understand," I said.

I want to say 'he', or 'our brother' or anything but his name because it still hurts to say it. But I make myself. The last day the last person says his name is the day he truly dies. These aren't my words, they're Mrs Blythe's. She often talks of Walter. Not in a sentimental way, declaring how he would have loved this or loathed that. She simply remembers him, quietly and lovingly; a line of one his poems, his favourite hat, the sound of his laughter. Whenever I'm near her I am always waiting, hoping, to hear her say something about him. Others declare that it's time she let go of her loss and moved on. Though they don't say it in so many words.

"Let us pray for the Blythes and for Mrs Blythe especially, that she might yet find the grace to yield to God's will."

This was one of the prayers offered at Prayer Meeting last week. To which Jerry responded, "Let us pray for Mr Amos, that he may yet know the difference between the will of God and the godlessness of war."

I shrank in my pew as he said it. Not because I am ashamed of Jerry -how could I be- but because I knew it would hurt our father. Lately Prayer Meetings have become another sort of battlefield, with many congregants taking their aim at him.

Everyone knows about Faith. And even though she is married there are some who find the conduct of the Minister's daughter reflects poorly on our Church and feel it their duty to say so. She had talked of staying in the Glen until Christmas. The twins are expected then, and after her trouble in Southampton Dr Blythe wanted to keep her close. Jem was to go with the new intake at Toronto in the New year and I had been up in the east attic seeking out Bruce's baby things. But this morning when we stood on the veranda to say goodbye to the Fords and my sister and Jem were with them.

"It's for the best," Faith told me. "Two years will fly by and everyone will have forgotten all about our babies' beginnings. I can't bear for people to judge Father because of something I've done. When I think of the times those high and mighty humbugs stumbled -and _who_ did they expect to pick them up?"

"But the idea of you in Toronto... alone-"

"I won't be alone," she said simply, then reached into the pocket of her coat and brought out a black stone spotted with white. "This is for our wee man. You know how he always had his eye out for pretty treasures -I suppose he learned it from Jem." Faith passed it to me and the tiniest shiver went through her hand and into mine. "Well, I want to do that for him now. I want to bring him more than a posy or a wax flower... Something special- how did he describe it? 'Rarey with rainbows inside'. You'll do that for me- while I'm gone, won't you, Una? Promise me."

I promised. And then Faith piled into the Super Six with Jem, Dog Monday, Owen and Leslie, who did her best to raise as much red dust as she could as she motored down the drive -and to nettle as many Glen folk as she could by sounding the horn down the street.

We returned to the Manse and the Christmas we'd hoped for was folded up and put away with the the laundry and extra linen. Rosemary called me down from the attic and we had afternoon tea in the living room as though I was a guest. Father was holding a crumpled blue envelope. I'd seen it with him a few times. It was the usual invitation from the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. I never thought anything of it. Now I stared at it as man in the Middle Ages would have stared at a plague sore.

"You're going away too, aren't you?" I said into my tea cup.

Rosemary sat by me on the arm of the sofa. "We would like for you to come too, darling. Jerry-"

"Rosemary-" my father cut in. Father is never one to interrupt, least of all Rosemary. My brothers' absence suddenly felt contrived and I knew once again that whatever I was about to be told Jerry and Carl already knew. "Could we stretch to a fresh pot, do you think?" he said.

Rosemary stood up slowly and drifted toward the kitchen. It's how she always moves now, as if she has forgotten she has a body.

I sat and waited. I knew this would be hard for Father and I didn't want to make it worse. He lives with many ghosts, not only Mama and Bruce. Jerry never really came back, Faith wasn't able to stay, and Rosemary seems as if she can no longer bear to. She keeps finding her little boy everywhere. A marble, his favourite spoon, they turn up in the strangest places and whenever she sees them she forgets what she's doing and falls in a heap. I do my best to comfort her, but what can I say on the days she finds no trace of him at all? When I found her in his room clutching his pillow and sobbing, "I can't smell him anymore, he's gone..."

Father put the envelope in my hands. It was a bit of a running joke, the annual invitation. He and Rosemary would look at each other and say, Wouldn't it be nice? Six months in Peking. A year in Hawaii. To do good work and build something new instead of always walking the fine line between the precious feelings of the Elliots and the blunt opinions of the MacAllisters. Of eking out the slim pickings in the pantry for over-stayers, and lately, dodging barbed remarks about his beloved daughter. The latter had provided him with the final push.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Siam."

It was as though ice water had been poured on my head. I couldn't go so far away. I couldn't- I couldn't...

"When?"

"After Christmas... won't you come, Una? It would grieve me to leave you, sweetheart."

I wanted to say, then don't go. Instead I went and made the tea it looked like Rosemary had forgotten. Sloshing hot water into the pot to warm it, selecting just the right sort, something strong but not astringent. Milk first for Rosemary and after for Father, and would Carl be wanting any? And should I go with him tomorrow? I had once intended to go to Redmond, Rilla was to come, too. And Faith. We were going to get a little house together, somewhere near Rilla's Aunty Phil. Then Bruce died and the girls married and I couldn't go. I couldn't- I couldn't... I would stay and manage the house for Father and Rosemary, and when Jerry graduated I would go and live with him. Anyone could see he was broken. He needed me. And Faith, and Rilla, and Bruce whose name must never be forgotten. And Walter...

"Una- Oh little one, what is it? We never were sure of the right way to tell you-"

I felt my father's arms about me. He held me tight but all I could think was, I've still got the teapot in my hand.

"It's alright," I said, pulling away carefully. "Please, I'm alright. Let me finish this."

We sat at the kitchen table, the blue envelope was produced again and we talked about it sensibly. Their faces looked almost happy as they spoke. The school that was begun in 1913 was being extended, as was the Children's Home. Many had been orphaned after the epidemic and there was just as much need of strong capable arms as there was for soft, mothering ones. I saw Rosemary's eyes burn bright as she spoke. I knew it was right for them to go and felt a shame in my heart that it didn't feel right for me.

"What do you say, Una, do you think you might like to come?"

I stood up, removed my apron, and kissed them both.

"There's someone I need to ask first," I said.

The walk to the new cemetery is a lovely one. Just across River Rd and past a row of young poplars that line the lane like children marching into the hill. A year ago a steam shovel arrived and took out a slice of it, then the ground was laid to lawn before it was promptly dug up for all the bodies. Bruce lies in the south corner by a big slab of sandstone. It's sheltered and warm and sometimes I spy a grass snake basking, though I don't point this out to Bruce. Carl is the one who has the fascination for all things scaly. He wanted to do field work after the war but the loss of one eye makes this difficult as he has no depth of vision. He keeps bumping into things. Mrs Blythe says we bump into things because we are thinking of something other than where we are going. "And I should know," she smiled, "I have the wonky ankle to prove it."

Carl is just as blithe about it. He says he only needs one eye to peer into a microscope. He means to be a doctor, the laboratory sort not the hospital sort. Jerry wants to become a doctor, too. But of theology. There was a part of him that did aspire to be a Minister like Father but he has too many _whys_ inside him to be much good at that. A Minister is supposed to have the answer not ask the question, at least that's what Jerry thinks. Or he used to. Now I don't know what he believes.

"I miss our little brother, U. I miss him- I never realised what he was to me. It was Jem he idolised... and you he adored-"

"He had a way, didn't he?" I said. "Remember when everyone was dreaming up nasty punishments for the Kaiser. Boiling him in oil, firing him from a catapult, and Bruce said all he wanted was to make the Kaiser good, so that he would know what he had done and would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his... Jerry-"

Jerry was crying. He wrapped his arms about his legs and sobbed against his knees. I lay my head against his back. I could feel great wracks go through his body and into mine, and I held him tighter thinking there might be a way for me to absorb them, contain them, and keep him safe and clean. We stayed that way awhile, my knees hurt, and my neck, but I didn't want to let go until my brother wanted me to. In the next moment he did.

"It's supposed to be me being strong for you," he said, wetly.

I scruffed his hair, so snowy and soft, and nestled down next to him. "When did we make that rule?" I asked him.

It was meant as a joke, but as I've said I'm not very good at them.

"When Mother died," Jerry said, putting his arm around me. "She was worried about leaving you, she was very wise our Mama-"

He didn't need to tell me, I remember what she said. With her last breath she begged my father to keep me close and watch over me:

"The others can fight, John," she said. "But the world will hurt her."

But Mother was not so wise as to never be wrong. Because the world hadn't hurt me. It barely touched me. Instead I had to watch while it hurt everyone I loved.

"Let's not talk about that now," I said. Jerry wiped his face on his knees. "Do you know why I came here?"

"You're always here-"

It occurred to me that Jerry may have been waiting for me and I asked him.

"I assumed Father was going to tell you about our going to Siam. Mother R always said they would wait till after Jem and sis skipped off, and I knew as soon as you knew you would either bike over to Four Winds or come by here-"

"You're going too?" I didn't sound as surprised as I thought I might.

He began sucking on his knuckle again and in between sucks telling me that he couldn't face going back to Redmond, not now when all his whys had dried up. But he couldn't stay here either, not with the way things were with Nan.

How _were_ things with Nan, I wanted to ask him. He had left her in 1914 with an unspoken promise of love in his heart, and came back four years later and found he still couldn't say it. I wasn't sure how Nan felt. She graduated in the spring and talked vaguely of going back to teaching. We all thought she was waiting for Jerry. I wondered how much longer she would wait.

"Father thinks I'll rediscover all my whys if I go back to simple beginnings. Some good earnest Mission work, that's what I need. And I'm too tired to argue with him. I haven't much left to give to be honest, but I am at least capable of making Father happy."

"You're a good son-"

"I don't know about good but I mean to be dutiful." He looked up from his hand and peered at me. Jerry has great dark eyes which always remind me of night. Sometimes they are cloaked and foreboding and other times soothing and studded with stars. "And what about you, oh dutiful daughter, what do you mean to do? Will you go with Carl or come with me?"

"I have an idea of what I would like to do," I said. "I just need to rustle up the courage to do it."

Jerry stood up awkwardly and brushed the grass from his trousers, then offered me his hand.

"If you should manage it," he said, smiling, "remember to save a lick for me."

I left him with Bruce and began my quest. The road there was even more beautiful, the sun was low and painted stripes over the red dirt. The feel of the hillside behind me seemed almost encouraging, even the breeze at my back seemed to jostle me along. I made believe I was one of the clouds. The ones above me were shadow-coloured, but cast against the coral sky they seemed lighter, like flecks of ash rising from a fire.

I kept my eyes on their movements, on the spectral way they would change. I could stare unblinking for whole minutes at a cloud shaped like a turret and then blink my eye once and find it had transformed into a cave, a dragon, a row boat, a man. The nose of what had been airplane was now a maple leaf, now an arrow, now an arrowhead. Then the ancient smell of scotch pine filled me and I looked earthward again. To a meadowy patchwork of grass merging into clipped borders spilling with roses and marrows. Then to a stepping stone path threaded with mint that wove up the steps to a moss coloured door. To the left was a glossy brass bell and a neat knotted handle waiting to be pulled. But I have never pulled it. The people who live behind this door would only look at me askance and ask me why on earth I didn't just come in.

I think I would have rung it because there was something I wanted to ask, and proper formalities seemed right to me even if it made them laugh. But the front door stood wide open. There were cases and trunks in the hall, as well as a hat, in inconceivable hues of purple, pink and green. There were voices too, both familiar and unheard of, and footsteps tripping toward me. But these I knew. These belonged to someone I love and I didn't need to assemble a smile, it came to my face unbidden.

"Mrs Blythe -Anne, good evening, I... hope I haven't come at a bad time but there's something I wanted to ask-"

"Oh- oh Una!" Mrs Blythe gasped, "What a piece of luck to see you-"

My hand was grasped almost gratefully, hers was cold and shaky and her mouth was a soft, red blur. She tugged me into the garden, I noticed her other hand carried a saucepan.

"Anything edible, dig it up," she commanded, plucking at beans so quickly she left half the pods on the vine. "Oh, you won't believe it, Una. You simply will _not_ believe it..."

The quest would have to wait. I went to the opposite corner and began sizing up some likely onions. Soon the saucepan and my skirts were filled and she hastened me into the kitchen. The first thing that struck me was how strange it was to be there when Susan wasn't.

"Now, Una, darling -you have the wonderful reputation for being something of a cook-"

"I do?"

"You certainly do, and I need you to summon your talents now. Tell me you can spare a half hour- you _can_ spare a half hour, can't you?"

"Of course, Mrs Blythe. I'm glad to help, but what about Susan? As one cook to another I can tell you she will not like me taking over her kitchen."

"Bless you, sweetheart," Anne murmured, wiping her hands on the tea towel. "And you can be sure that Susan will bless you, too." She tossed an apron at me and hurried to the hallway. The telephone began to trill but she ignored it. Her eyes had that green look of a sky just before a thunderstorm. I wasn't sure if she was going to cry or scream. "Just make whatever you can manage out of _that_ -" she said, over the sound of the 'phone. "And _only_ that!"

"Mrs Blythe," I said, staring at the produce she was pointing to. "I don't know what you mean-"

"Shirley's arrived, oh Una, Shirley is _here_! And he's married... To a vegetarian!"

 **...**

 _Thanks for reading this story so far. I had many loose ends to tie up first, and a lot of those ends were sad, so if you've stuck with me until this point I promise you the story will get more lighthearted from now on :o)  
_


	5. A Bit of Luck

_**Chapter Five**_

"There you are!"

When I was very young I used to think that was my name. It seemed to my small self that when anyone saw me the first thing they'd say was _there you are_ , as if I'd been hiding. At this moment I was no further away from the crowd in the living room than the veranda that sheltered its picture window. There is a low bench in front of it, placed there for Susan Baker's unsurpassed geraniums, but I managed to squeeze myself next to a pot and was watching the moths colliding with the porch light. Their little bodies hurling at the thin glass bulb made a sound like rain in a frying pan.

Mrs Blythe perched on the railing opposite me, her feet swinging girlishly, her eyes drawn to where I was looking.

"Why do they do that, do you suppose?" she asked me. "Surely it burns them. Listen to it, pip, pip, pip- like an infuriating 'phone connection."

"I was just thinking how it reminded me of fat spitting-"

"Ah, yes- clever girl. Always the cook... but I hope you know, Una, not _only_ the cook."

She turned away from the light to look at me. I had been staring at it for so long I couldn't make out her face. Though I could imagine it. With the same wince it bore when Shirley's new wife asked for the name of the servant who had rustled up the a scrummy meal. On hearing this Susan found her voice after being stunned into silence by her little brown boy turning up with a not so little brown girl. Woman would be a more fitting description, womanly even better. She had the fully ripened figure and dimpled face to rival another house guest, Mrs Diana Wright.

"I cook for the Blythes," Susan said, slowly. "Well in point of fact, Miss Merritt, I am housekeeper to the Blythes these twenty-seven years. And I believe I shall go now and take my place in the kitchen where I belong-"

Upon which the house divided into those who went after Susan as she stomped to the back of the house, and those who went to Merritt Blythe who turned very red and blotchy and fled up the stairs.

I wasn't sure who needed me but I do have a talent for knowing what needs doing, so I set about collecting the glassware and plates from the dining room. I discovered Shirley in the kitchen. To his credit he went to Susan first. But before he reached her he must have remembered he was married, and stood by the pot-stand unsure where it was he was supposed to go.

"Hmmm," he said, "that didn't go as well as I hoped."

"Tea always helps," I suggested.

"Thanks for the offer, Una," he said, straightening his tie, "but I best see to my women first."

Not for the first time I missed my long hair, I used to be able to hide all sorts of expressions by letting it fall over my face. Instead I ducked past him with my tray and placed a pile of dishes by the sink. There was a small laugh hiding inside me but no more words. Not that it mattered, Shirley and I have been known to spend whole hours together without any conversation.

This was unusual by Meredith standards -even Father would have summoned a Proverb- but it verged on the miraculous for a Blythe. He was something of a cuckoo child. Susan Baker called him her 'little brown boy', not only for his features which were all over brown like an oak in late autumn, but because she considered him hers. Anne nearly died giving birth to him, so it was Susan's arms that held him and her face he saw the first time he opened his eyes. Like Faith and her rooster, or the Draper-Drew's goose and their sow, from that moment on Shirley considered Susan his mother and took after her thereafter.

If Shirley is known for anything it is his unassuming, straight forward nature. He was the one I would go to when everyone else paired off, though we were allies more than chums. I knew he would join the Air Force the moment he turned eighteen. By the time he was twenty-one he'd spent 300 hours in the sky when most pilots were lucky to survive six missions. Somehow he looked younger now than he did when he went away. His dark brown eyes were wide and sheepish, like Bruce's when he attempted to stay up past his bedtime. Hiding behind the curtains in the living room forgetting we could see his toes, and realising this was going to be trickier than he thought.

It was Mrs Wright who rescued me, popping into the kitchen with a request from Merritt for some of Una Meredith's scrummy apple crisp.

"Better make that two slices," said Diana's husband, poking his head round the kitchen door.

"Three," said Dr Blythe, joining him.

"Merritt first," Diana tutted, and gave Shirley the last piece and a gentle nudge in the direction of his wife. "Don't I love an excuse to come to Ingleside. Are there any more children of yours planning to marry? I'm only asking Gil, because our train leaves tomorrow and I'd like to know if Fred and I should change our tickets."

"The look on Susan's face-"

"The look on Shirley's! Now who did he remind you of, Fred?"

"That lummox," Mr Wright said with a wide grin.

"Me?" said Dr Blythe.

"To a T. Like the cat that got the cream. So proud of himself -the way he kept looking sidelong at Merritt as though he couldn't believe his luck-"

"I'll have you know I earned every bit of my luck," Dr Blythe cut in.

"As did your son. And all our children. They've suffered through so much... Oh Gil," Diana said, with a familiar sounding sigh, "tell me there's hope for Jack-"

I wiped down the sink and folded the tea towel and went out to the veranda.

"Una, dear," Anne said, softly, "I hope you know you don't have to skulk about in the dark. It was a simple misunderstanding on Merritt's part. They do things differently in England. It wouldn't have occurred to her, you being like a daughter to us. Where she comes from everyone grows up knowing their place, stepping out of it is simply not done. When Gilbert and I went there- goodness when was that... when Rilla was still in rompers, England quite wore me down. Endless polite nods and conversations that never got any further than the weather. The worst was when I would try to find a friend among one of the waiting staff at our hotel, or whatever great castle we visited, and they would look at me as though I meant to get them into trouble."

She dropped down from the ledge and knelt beside me. Her skirt ballooned around her in a murky puddle of maroon and her ears were hung with turquoise stones. A wide printed scarf in those colours was wound about her head like a paisley halo, with a sweep of red hair over her brow and a fat rope coiled at her nape. If I had been asked to draw a picture of a gypsy as a child it would have looked like her, down to the shawl she had draped round her shoulders. Made from a silk so sheer the butterflies and nightingales embroidered over it seemed about to flit away. I have always admired it and when Faith had cause to borrow it once, and then forgot to return it for at least a year, I used to drape it over our naked lady lamp and watch the shadows float over our walls and ceiling like clouds had come into our room.

Mrs Blythe's eyes are the same airy grey, like the clouds, like Walter's. I don't know how else to describe them except to say they always seemed to ask, Isn't it about time you let your real you come out and play? One day I am going to have to tell her that the Una she sees is the only Una there is. But not yet. I can't bear to disappoint her. She really does believe there is more to life than the one that unfolds before our eyes. Her eyes, her red hair, the fact that she was a foundling who skips barefoot on the sand and talks to her garden; it's not just me who senses something different about her. Walter used to say that the real difference between his mother and everyone else is that she dared to live truthfully while others only talked about it. She looked up at me and I knew she was going to share some uncomfortable truth that I didn't want said aloud.

"I've often wondered, Miss Una, whether the reason you became such an excellent cook is really because you want to avoid people." My face must have betrayed alarm because she squeezed my hand affectionately. "I'm teasing! Oh, Una, I'm sorry. Though there might be just the tiniest grain of truth in it, perhaps. I don't expect you to believe me but I like to be alone myself. In fact the older I get the more I crave it. Long stretches of solitude for hours at a time. A banquet of silence. Oh, that sounds like the title of a second-rate novel, don't you think? A banquet of silence."

"I rather like it," I ventured.

"You do? Perhaps I am not so rusted up as I think. I used to be a writer, in my college days. Ugh, how old it makes me feel to think of it like that. You were for Redmond, weren't you... and now... you're not?"

I nodded. Two hours ago this would have been the perfect time to bring up the nature of my quest. Now with Shirley and his new wife about to claim their place here it seemed too much to ask.

"And your father is whisking my Rosemary off to Siam-"

I nodded again. The moths flung themselves at the light, pip, pip, pip.

"Una- there was something I did want to ask you... of course now... with Merritt-"

I stood up. It seemed wrong for Mrs Blythe to be kneeling at my feet and I offered her my hand and helped her up.

"Would you mind having a look at the knot on my apron?" I said. "I'm afraid I tied it carelessly and I can't seem to get it undone. Father will be wondering where I am-"

"Una, love, if you don't want to stay here when your folks go away I'll understand-"

"You think I don't want to stay?"

"After sticking you in the kitchen and demanding you to come up with instantaneous brilliance -which you did by the way. Merritt was raving... She never meant to treat you like a servant, merely assumed you were one. Shirley was mortified-"

"Shirley. Mortified."

"It takes a mother to know," Anne said, with a look the was pure Dr Blythe. She pulled at the knot and slipped the apron off my shoulders. "You never have to wear this here, I hope you know that. It was only that I was so- so- caught unawares. Jem and Rilla I understand. Sometimes things happen before you realise they are begun -I'm not so old as to forget that. But our little brown boy. If I expected any of my children to make a nice comfortable bachelor of himself it would have been him."

"It was Walter who always said he wanted to become a dusty old professor, writing masterpieces in his ivory tower."

"Oh, Una, what would he have made of all this?"

"A limerick perhaps?"

"Exactly. So what do you say, will you stay with us unprincipled, outrageous Blythes?"

"If you're sure-"

"Not to be blunt, dear, but I need you! Who else is going to show me how to make that delicious onion tart, or your potato pie, or that thing you did with the squash. And your apple crisp. So thin and delicate, even Susan wanted to know the making of that. And Shirley, he would hate to think it was because of him that you wouldn't live with us, now that I _do_ know. And Rilla would be heartbroken if you left and you know how Gilbert clucks over her health at the moment, as though no one ever had a baby in the entire history of the world. And Miss Cornelia, well if anyone could bring about a lasting peace between her and our Susan it's you, darling... And-"

On she went, her hands clasped in front of her and the light of the lamp behind. Loose strands of her hair glowing like a shower of sparks. A force of nature, that's what we called her at the Manse, and I watched her as I might watch a storm from my window. Half terrified, half mesmerised, and so in awe I no longer knew what she said. But that didn't matter. I heard the word _need_ and that was enough.

Shirley and Merritt walked me home. I held onto on Shirley's arm and hoped Merritt would take his other, but she tucked me around the soft curve of her elbow and patted my hand tenderly. She had dimples instead of knuckles and the plain gold band she wore made her third finger looked like a tiny woman who wore her belt too tight. She reminded me of my favourite sort of meringue, with a glossy, slightly singed veneer and fluffy and sweet underneath.

"Oh, isn't this loverly," she sighed.

"This is Rainbow Valley," Shirley said.

"Goodness what a name, like a children's book."

"It was Walter who came up with it, wasn't it, Una?"

I was glad it was dark and that the two people on my arms were miles taller than I was, I could look at the ground while they looked at each other.

"Well of course he did," said Merritt. "Him being a poet. What a loverly lad he was-"

"You knew Walter?" I said.

"Did a stint as a driver in the north of France. The good old FAU. I never forget a face and Walter Blythe was a stone-cut angel. And his mate! Now there was a cheeky so and so. He could get you anything -supplies, rations, chocolate -the _cheese_. I might have stayed for the cheese but I couldn't abide what the horses suffered, it near broke your heart. So I put in a transfer for the RFC -you can't get a horse in a plane, thank goodness. We were teaching these Canadian lads some basic first aid, the sort you might manage in a cockpit, and I saw the name Blythe on my list and I thought, Merritt Pugh, I'll bet my last pair of good stockings he knows Walter Blythe. Though everyone knew him by then. Such a loverly poem. You never went to a service where it wasn't read out by some- Oh! There I go again, putting my foot in it. I'm that nervous. It's a bit ridiculous, really. I spent two days calmly living inside an upturned ambulance with Nelly Diver's dead foot under my back while the world got shelled to smithereens, then I come to paradise and go all pieces."

Shirley bent over me and kissed the top of his wife's head. She had left her effervescent hat in the hall and her hair was pulled in a simple twist in a bid to make it behave. Merritt has the sort of curly hair that is sure to make Betty Meade nod in sympathy. Unruly, kinky, wild. Even her eyelashes looked untameable. She patted my hand again.

"What I said- about you being the cook- I could have kicked myself."

I pulled away from them and stopped. There was the merest sound of the sleigh bells that hung from the boughs of the Tree Lovers. Sometimes I am afraid to hear them, because I can't help think of all those boys who never came back to their sweethearts. Merritt and Shirley turned round to look at me. I crossed my arms and tried to stand as tall as I could.

"There's nothing wrong in you calling me a cook. I like cooking."

They both broke out in matching grins.

"Well, thank goodness for that!" Merritt exclaimed, linking arms with me once more. "Because we love to eat, don't we, Brownie?"

"Won't argue there, Merry."

We continued past the spruces and Merritt pulled me even closer and spoke in a theatrical whisper. "He won't ever argue, my husband. I never saw the like. The kindest, most goodhearted fellow I ever had the luck to marry-"

I was anticipating her next words would be something like, Why ever did you let him get away? Not that anyone had ever said that to me before but I have always dreaded thinking up a reply.

"There's the briar patch. My home's on the other side of that wall, Mrs Blythe-"

"I didn't come all the way out to the New World for you to call me Mrs Blythe. Call me Merry, won't you? All the girls back home called me Merry."

"Thank you, Merry. Good night."

It was on the tip of my tongue to say and goodnight _Brownie_. But I only looked up at him and smiled.

They stood with their arms around each other, watching me kick open the sticking gate. I gave them a wave and Merry waved back as though I was boarding a ship bound for unknown lands, though I all I did was pick out a path between the vegetable beds. Our cat slid out of the beetroot tops and and raced me to the kitchen door. A small glass of milk mixed with cinnamon waiting for me on the table, and lamps had been placed at the bottom and the top of the stairs.

I walked up them slowly, expecting Murk to wrap himself around my legs at every step, and paused by the door of my room. There was the bureau pretending to be a dressing table, the piano stool tucked under it, the ivy, the little saint, the willow leaf wallpaper marked with Faith's feet. I tried seeing it all though Merritt's eyes. Would she feel every difference poke in at her or would it fold around her with the cosy softness as the pale blue cardigan I am never seen without? The little headless saint seemed to titter at me, wanting to know what on earth I thought I was doing when I should be brushing my hair. I thought about all the Ingleside bedrooms, imagining what it would be like to sleep in one. And as I drew the brush over my hair and began to count each stroke Merry's words flew out of my mouth-

A New World, A New World, A New World, A New World, A New World, A New World, A New World, A New World...

...

 _* FAU is the Friends Ambulance Unit. The Friends (also known as Quakers) were pacifist, but during the war many wanted to assist in non-combative ways_

 _* RFC is the Royal Flying Corp_

 _Now was that a little more cheerful? I hope I managed to get enough Anne in the story, and that you liked your first meeting with the latest Mrs Blythe. Thank you so much for reading. Reviews are scarce but I have a good number of lurkers and it seems right somehow that a Una story attracts the quiet type :o)  
_


	6. Prelude

**_Chapter Six_**

The dining room at Ingleside has always reminded me of piano music. It has a beautiful symmetry, like Chopin's Raindrop or Bach's Well Tempered Clavier. Whenever I'm in there I want to dance my fingers over every object and play around the room. You come through a cherry wood door and on the opposite wall is a painting by the daughter of one of Anne's Redmond chums. It's supposed to be of a large villa but it isn't like any villa I have seen, done in thick daubs of pigment that are almost quilt-like. Susan is fond of saying Dog Monday could do better. But I think I understand what the artist -who is also named Stella- is trying to do, and that is to paint feelings. At least I am always filled with feeling when I look at it. Perhaps it is the title, The House of All Sorts; I imagine it as a sort of haven for people who don't fit.

To the right is a window with a view out to an ancient pear tree. It's as tall as the house and as scarlet as the fire that now blazes in the five foot fireplace on the other side of the room. In the middle of this like a fat round stomach or a beating heart is the dining table. It's made of walnut which means I always see faces in it, and has the sort of ball and claw feet that make me anxious of dropping my napkin. If I had to choose I would say the chairs are my favourites, upholstered with a velvet as soft and green as the mossy banks of the Valley stream.

It was there we first met the Blythes. Our Aunt Martha had ordered us out of the house, and we were tired of playing in the old cemetery and decided to explore what we had only known as tree tops, never thinking we might find paradise. There was thirteen year old Jem frying trout over a fire, Nan strewing the fallen log table with tiny flowers, Di distributing leaf plates, Shirley on his stomach and Walter on his back reciting bits of Longfellow. It was a world complete and so perfectly made for children I felt I had walked into Neverland. In my head I had designated Jem as Peter Pan, the natural leader of our little band. Though I soon began to think of him as Hook for stealing my sister away. It hadn't occurred to me that Faith wanted to be captured. Or that Walter was really Pan. The boy who never grew up.

He was now in a silver frame on the mantelpiece, with his arm around another soldier, looking as if he had just shared a joke. Anne found it among his personal effects that were sent home when he died. Before its discovery she'd vowed she would never display a picture of her son in uniform because that wasn't how she wanted to remember him. But this photograph, it is beautiful, joyful proof he remained Walter to the end.

I could feel his presence like the glow of the fire behind me. Here we sat like three little maids in a row; Merry prodding her finger over her plate in a bid to collect the last crumbs of cheese while Rilla chewed on her pencil. Although she happened to be thinking over a particularly knotty problem that wasn't the reason the pencil was in her mouth. She is never seen without one lately and confesses to me daily she would dive into the coal scuttle and eat the lot if she thought that no one would miss it. Chalk, tar, turpentine, fresh cut wood and brick dust called to her like a Siren to a sailor.

"I've even tasted Ingleside," she said, wiping the corner of her mouth and inspecting her finger for pencil lead. "You know that spot where Father backed the motor into the side of the house? I was there the other day hunting about for my glove when I spotted a nasty gouge in the wall, and the next thing I knew I was _licking_ it."

"I dare say this isn't the only house you've sampled," said Merry, winking at me.

Rilla laughed. "Oh dear, you've got me there," she said, "It's true. Ken thinks it's a hoot, says I must be growing some great engineer. I've had a little taste of the Manse and the Meades and Yew Tree cottage. As for the House o' Dreams, I feel I've eaten half the chimney breast. It's awful I know, but I can't seem to help myself. No doubt Father would give me lots of sensible reasons why I should stop. But I'm afraid if he does forbid me I might resort to pulling my hair out like poor Mrs Shearsmith."

"Who would that be?" Merry asked her, peering hopefully at my plate. I began to stack them and brush the crumbs from the tablecloth.

"She was the wife of one of the Lowbridge doctors. Lowbridge is to the east of the Glen, on the other side of Upper Glen hill-"

"So let me see," Merry cut in. She held her left hand out sideways and poked at her palm. "Glen St Mary lies in the valley and is named for the river that starts in the hill to the west. To the north is you, Rilla, which is Windy Point-" she said, wriggling her thumb.

"Four Winds," I said. "Four Winds Point is where the lighthouse is."

"Four Winds. Just so. And then there's the harbour, which is made up of Harbour Head, Harbour Mouth and Over Harbour," she said, counting off her index, middle and ring fingers.

"Which leads into Lowbridge," Rilla concluded, grasping Merry's pinky. "Though I'm sure they'd hate being thought of as smaller than the Glen. Lowbridge has a larger population but it's more spread out. They're farming country and we're a port. The Shearsmiths were at Creek House, at the smart end of Main street. It's a really splendid place, as grand as anything you might see in Charlottetown. But Dr Shearsmith couldn't bear to live there anymore."

"Don't tell me his wife went off with some other fellow-"

"If only she had, he might have got over that. She drowned herself after news that her youngest boy died of wounds. She'd already lost a son at Ypres and another at Selle-"

"Ah," said Merry. She placed her hand on Rilla's and patted it briskly. "We won't dwell on that now. Best not to dwell. You're doing your bit, growing a new little life for the world." The fire behind her seemed to crackle with agreement and she looked out to the pear tree and smiled. "Doesn't it make you glad to think our children will never know what war is. The war to end all wars, that's how we must think of it. If you keep living in yesterday your child may never want to come out."

Rilla grimaced. "That's fine by me," she said.

"You're not the first to think that, Rilla my dear, but nature has her ways. You won't always have such a neat little bump. By the end you'll be waddling and clutching your back and and that fed up. It's when they get fed up you know the confinement's come to an end. I never go by size nor weeks but how foul tempered the lass gets. Never mind your lily of the field, it's the cow in the field you should aspire to. Nice big yawping bellows, they'll bring a child out better than goose grease."

Rilla was eyeing me with a look we had all become adept at since Merritt's arrival. Though she had been with us for nearly three weeks we had yet to get used to her ripe remarks.

"Have you assisted with many deliveries, Merry?" I said, plucking the pencil from Rilla's lips.

"More than my share, I'd say, and I hope that fat little gent I coaxed out in Halifax shall be my last. I will always be sorry not to have made it in time for your big day, Rilla. Not that you were expecting me -well, I was hardly expecting myself!"

Merritt had gone to the Liverpool docks to say farewell to Shirley never expecting to see him again. He hadn't planned to propose, she said, and most would say he still hadn't. Merely asked her, "What have you got to stay here for, Merry-girl, why don't you come with me?"

She left with the clothes she was standing in, which explained the strange hat. That along with two blouses, a coat and a skirt was all she managed to scare up from the female passengers. Shirley had already purchased a good sized cabin for himself, after so much time in the air he couldn't bear to sleep below decks. There was certainly room for Merritt but they must be married first. For three days he slept on a deckchair waiting for the ship's captain to arrange a license, after which the journey home became their honeymoon.

They had planned to send a telegram when they disembarked at Halifax. Then Merritt was called to assist with a difficult labour lasting almost two days. It wasn't until they arrived at Glen station and saw no one was there to meet them they realised their mistake. Shirley had suggested she hole up in Charlottetown while he went to Ingleside to explain. Merritt refused, telling him plainly that if she couldn't make his family love her she would go back to England and no harm done. When she said that to me it made a sudden sense why my sturdy, quiet chum had fallen in love with her. Merritt wasn't a meringue at all, but a peach. She might be gushingly sweet on the outside but inside she was steady as stone.

"I've done my dash with birthing babies," she continued. "I want my own children now. But not yet. Brownie and I have been as madly romantic as we ever mean to be. Now's the time to lay a good foundation for our future. Oh, we have grand plans, Brownie and I."

The first being they meant to stay on at Ingleside for a year at least. They might have been content with a little place like the Douglas' but that would never suit Susan and both Merritt and Shirley were adamant that Susan must live with them. I hadn't heard Susan's opinion on this but I am sure it would be more forthcoming if she didn't have Merritt's vegetarianism to puzzle over.

"Even Romans eat fish on a Friday," she had muttered to Rosemary after service this morning. "Miss Merritt won't even have that!"

Rilla and I had walked back from church together. Ken didn't do church, though he promised Rilla he wouldn't work on his book. And I believed him. As we waded through the meadowsweet I could picture him on the back step with his coffee and his cigarettes. Other visions, of Rilla being riled by the lack of electricity for all those sparkling appliances had never come to pass. She was luminously happy about her lot. What did it matter if the old stove burnt the bottoms of her loaves and left them raw on top, or whether she lived in an apron so she didn't make more laundry than she needed to? Rilla erupted with giggles then and told me about an incident where she had rushed to the front door to sign for a parcel and couldn't understand why the delivery boy went scarlet.

"It wasn't until we undressed for bed that I realised I had thrown my apron over my underthings -and never put on a dress!"

I went red too. Not because of her mistake, but because it never occurred to me that once you marry you are expected to get undressed in front of the other person.

We saw Merry waving to us from the attic room as we passed through the garden, her white arm fluttering excitedly like a gull at a shoreside picnic. She was in the hall when we entered and drew us into the dining room where we discovered she had been working on a floorplan of the house. Rilla looked at the drawing with a glee she usually reserved for bits of coal and set upon it with her usual determination to organise us perfectly.

"Nan is the problem," she said, thoughtfully, sipping at her ginger tea. "If she would only make up her mind what job she means to apply for then sorting out the rooms would be simple. Miss Cornelia in the spare room-"

"We're more than happy to move but I should tell you Mother Susan won't like it." Merry said. She may have had a tenuous grasp of geography but she knew the lay of the land when it came to Ingleside.

"Nothing for it, I'm afraid. It's the only bedroom on the ground floor. Plus it has the advantage of being next door to the library which she could use as a sitting room."

It also had the disadvantage of being across the hall from Susan's kitchen. But none of us wanted to mention that.

"Then we have you and Shir up in the boys' old attic room-"

"Gets the tick from me. That room's as big as my aunt's whole flat."

"Hmm, so that leaves the twin's room, my old room, and the little room. The twin's room would make the best spare room. It's by far the largest and prettiest, but it still has Nan in it."

"I'm happy to take the little room," I said quietly.

Rilla looked at me.

"It's a bare box," Merry objected, "you don't want to be in there, Una dear. Maybe you could share with Nan."

Truth be told I would feel more uncomfortable sharing a room with the girl my brother had let down. I foresaw nights when she might ask what I thought had gone wrong? And days when her twin sister would come home for the holidays with a look on her face as if to say, Who's sleeping in my bed?

Di had returned to Kingsport to study medicine, and though it was only October her letters revealed she was already anticipating Christmas. She had fought hard to be accepted into medical school. Redmond doesn't have enough women wanting to become doctors to necessitate the all female class most colleges insist on. There was talk of her going to Boston until the Redmond faculty reluctantly agreed that Di might enroll with the men -many of whom aren't happy. It's all very well women doing their bit in wartime, they would tell her, but this is the peace and time for things to go back to how they were. Of course, Di Blythe is the sort to face the foe head on, but I knew the winter break beckoned warmly after so many cold shoulders.

As it turned out Di never came home. She and Carl met up with her folks as well as Father, Rosemary and Jerry at the Kingsport station on Boxing Day. From there they went onto Toronto to spend two weeks with the Fords and, all going well, the latest additions to the Blythe clan.

On the first hour of 1920 Susan took the call that two little boys had come into the world -with Faith's gold hair, Jem's perfect ears, and eyes in colours no one could agree upon. Susan hadn't slept for three days in anticipation of that call and promptly fell asleep at the kitchen table with a vivid smile on her face. It was decided that I should telephone to Four Winds and put a call through to Avonlea where Nan was currently staying. And after reassuring Mrs Wright that we hadn't all been killed in our beds I heard Nan's voice, soft with sleep.

"Una, is that you, is it the babies, are they here?"

"Mrs Wright wanted me to be the one to tell you. They arrived not two hours ago. James Gerald born at two minutes to midnight and Walter John born twelve minutes later. Both healthy and strong, as is Faith by all accounts-"

I relayed all I knew about weights and lengths and hours spent in labour. Like his father, Jem had stayed at his wife's side for the birth, at first rendered speechless by Faith's endurance, then unable to stop raving about the perfection of his sons.

"The names _are_ perfect," Nan said. "Mother will be -oh I'm so _happy_ for Mother. _And_ your father. And... Jerry. James Gerald. Goodness, won't Faith have her hands full. Did you speak to your brother at all?

"No."

"Well, if you should speak to him -you _will_ speak to him again before he goes onto Siam, won't you?- tell him the interview at White Sands Emporium went better than expected. They want me to start next week. Not on the floor, as a buyer. Oh, Una I have to go -is Shir wanting to talk? Fred has given Diana the nod to make a long distance call to Toronto."

"No message from Shirley but he's blowing you a kiss."

"Alright darling. God bless."

She was fine till the God bless. God bless is how we say good bye to each other at the Manse. Nan would have caught the habit from Jerry and said it without thinking. I heard her voice catch, she rang off abruptly, and I stood in the hallway listening to Susan snoring in her chair.

"What was that, Una, has Dog Monday run all the way back from Toronto?" Cornelia asked me, peering from behind the door of the spare room. "I can hear someone making the most unholy noise."

I put the receiver in its cradle and offered to make Mrs Elliot some warm milk. Sure enough Shirley and Merry appeared hoping for a cup, and by the time I had tucked Susan into bed the sun was doing the same to the stars. I was turning out all the lights and checking the door as I always do when I found myself in the dining room again. A watery moon shone through the window and lit upon Walter's laughing face. We shared a glass of cinnamon milk and I told him all about his nephews.

"We're keeping faith, just like you told us to, Walter. We're all of us keeping faith."

 **...**

 _* The House of All Sorts is actually a book by a wonderful early 20th century Canadian artist called Emily Carr. I like to imagine Stella Maynard made a home for herself there, and lead a very adventurous life._

 _* A flat is an English term for an apartment_

 _Thank you for reading, for your reviews and faves. I still have three new characters to introduce but I keep falling into backstory which is slowing the plot down. I am doing what I can to speed it along but a Una story is a different beast to an Anne story. Una likes her loose ends neatly tied and I must tie them for her. I hope is it satisfies you as much as it satisfies her!  
_

 ** _I am taking a break from this story for a while, my sincere apologies for keeping you hanging, I promise I will finish it but I have decided to finish my Windy Willows story first. I hope you decide to come back to Una later on in the year. Katherine._**


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